Eternity
by PenCorp
Summary: Rin pays her price.  And, she wonders over the dangerous twisting of these strings called fate.  Eternity is a terribly long time to avoid someone.


Eternity

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_[Creak _

_It hurt_, she decided,_ it definitely hurt to _die. Her tongue had swollen black and Rin was worried she'd never talk again with the amount of pressure taunt around her neck. She couldn't feel her feet. Her fingertips stung so bad it was wonder she could even move them. Bones were awkward, like her skin had been stretched far too tight. Every muscle ached, yet it felt more like atrophy than anything else, and she wondered _how long it had been this time_.

It was a struggle to even open her eyelids.

_[Creak _

_Sunlight on reanimated retinas_, Rin decided, _was terrible_. It took her another full minute to process the slight _peck, peck, peck _on her cheek and the rush of indignity being 'scavenged' brought, but when it did -

a hiss of stagnant air escaped her.

"_Get lost."_ She croaked.

The crow gave a startled caw before flapping away, obviously displeased its meal wasn't entirely _dead_. Rin supposed, even as she hung there with purple lips and blood burst eyes, she could understand the bird's annoyance. She'd hate it too if her food kept waking up and staring at her.

But then again, there weren't many creatures like Rin, so she probably didn't have to worry.

Releasing a slow rasp of air, Rin forced what strength she could into her arm, before reaching up to the rotted and brine covered rope. She forced her bloodless fingers to curl and give a good tug. Then she winced. The amount of pain and the lack of flexibility in her arms was a good indicator she'd been down a week. Understandable, considering the severity of her death.

_[Creak _

_Hanging was definitely a terrible way to die._

For two more days she drifted back and forth, working as much power as she could into her limbs, before once again trying to snap the noose. It was on the third day she finally heard the fibers rip and her body fall free. The damp, fog laden air felt good against her skin, brushing away loose dirt and running fingers through her hair. She fell for miles. As it was, she really hadn't much of a choice since she'd been dangling over a ravine the whole time. Dangling like a morbid flag.

_Besides_, Rin thought with a sarcastic snort, _it wasn't like she could die anyway._

_Well, not for long, at least._

The icy river welcomed her with open arms - - black, wide and deep.

_All things carry a price, and though it is only paid once, it is equivalent._

At twelve going on forty, Rin had finally figured out why such terrible pain always follows such consuming happiness. She supposed it was learned through experience life with the Demon lord had wrought, but somehow, in the back of her mind, she knew the lesson had begun the moment she'd been torn from her family. It was because good was _fleeting _- - and loss was _inevitable_. It was because a price is always paid for the things one desires, even the gifts one receives.

At twelve, Rin understood she would never leave her Master's side because his gift had _indentured _her to him. He would free her, when, and only when, _he _wished too. Not that she felt the will or even the desire to leave him, but still, at twelve, Rin understood the difference between _want to _and _have to._

She'd decided then, with the firm resolve only a child could muster, that to follow her Lord _was _her price. _And_, she'd decided, it wasn't a bad one, all things considered.

_Children of twelve are stupid._

Rin gasped and frozen to the core, dragged her broken body from the river with bloody fingertips, torn from scrabbling weakly at rocks. Her neck had broken when they hung her so now her head listed slightly to the side, meaning she'd have to figure out how to reset it. At the depressing thought, Rin couldn't help drifting to the memory of Kagome and her lord's half brother, wishing a little bit for their warmth. Kagome had been so sweet to her.

But that was nearly a century ago and Kagome surely dead. Rin had no idea what became of Inuyasha.

All she knew was her life went on when every day she wished only for it to stop - - just end.

Humans were not meant to live as immortals.

Because Rin knew her soul was finite, while her body was not.

Crawling under the shade of the bordering wood, damp with mist and heavy with rotting foliage, Rin found a soft mound of leaves to curl up in. The gentle wind that only a moment ago had been welcome, now cut like knives into her flesh. It was funny how after a week of motionless almost-death her body still craved sleep.

She might've been immortal, but everything else wasn't and still required the work and healing time of an average human. It would take awhile and Rin wondered if that pack of demons she'd once exchanged pleasantries with still held claim to the area. They would certainly let her rest in their caves until she was normal again. _Well, _she mused tiredly, _as normal as Rin got._

And the sandman came upon her quickly.

In the eventual bliss of sleep, Rin felt her mind turn from demon packs, half demons and priestesses to the alternately painful and warm memories of her Lord. She dreamt of Jaken and clean skin, warm scales and dragons with two heads and white, white hair, face, clothes and cool amber. She smelled the sky and even as tears slid down her dirty cheeks, little Rin smiled.

But she wasn't so little anymore, in any sense.

_[01 - - A Positioning of Events_

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Rin woke with a start. Clutching at stiff cotton sheets, she felt her heart pump wildly in her chest breaking the silence which hung thick in the air.

"I haven't dreamt of that Era since the eighteen hundreds."

It was a weird thing to say, especially for an orphaned school girl with old eyes and a long lineage of wealth and prestige. She should know too, being around upon creation of said _lineage _of _wealth _and _prestige_. She'd married into it, been accepted, bared children once - - and only once, because no mother wished to outlive their youngest child, and all future progeny of youngest child - - making, if not a happy life, then a comfortable one for herself. When industry came, trees had fallen and Rin had been unable to follow the demons she'd befriended, but neither could she follow the humans she'd cared for. The humans she'd once been part of.

So Rin had decided to do the same thing as all those fanciful maidens in the fairy tales had done. She settled and would wait out eternity until fire fell from the sky and the final days of every religion played out. Rin understood _that _part of the fairy tales - - The Waiting - - but she'd managed to out grow the dream for a noble prince to spirit her away.

She'd come to understand how everything was merely a mix of lies and truth.

_And what, _she mused with a derisive snort, flopping gustily back onto her bed, _would _Jaken _have thought of her pondering on larger things? Philosophy, knowledge? _He would've probably whopped her one and squawked about the _arrogance _and _gall _that humans seemed to inherit in _spades_. In short (no pun intended) Jaken would've found a bosom buddy in one particular view of Socrates.

_The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing._

_...Except for Lord Sesshoumaru_, Rin amended for her long ago friend and tormentor. _All else would fit that standard perfectly_. She had found, having only an eternity to look forward to, a great dislike for being ignorant and had passed the centuries learning (when it could be managed of course) all she could about the world. She'd figured the problem with most the Unanswered Questions was a lack of time and appropriate knowledge. Though it made her seem a genius in the amount of connectivity she could muster, it also forced a severe amount of forgetfulness as well.

She'd often muddle what century she was in - - understandable, but not a good thing when around _people _people.

Stumbling out of bed, Rin blinked at a piece of textbook that seemed to flash incongruously across her mind; _No one truly knows the full limit and extent of the human memory_, _because it is currently impossible to test the bounds. 'Memory space' being supposedly infinite with the type of 'coding' involved._

As Rin groggily clambered into her bathtub and flipped on the shower, she couldn't help wondering if her own brain was a study in _'testing the bounds.'_ After all, she could still remember the feel of the villagers sticks across her back and feet. The taste of blood in her mouth and the incredible safeness, reassurance - - warmth of being held on her _Lord's arm_.

Starting slightly, Rin pushed through shampoo slick strands of hair with a spark of unease. She never thought on the Demon lord or his old retainer, not since the _second _time she'd died. It sent a shiver of forewarning through her blood. Another thing Rin had learned over the centuries was to never underestimate the power of fate and synchronicity, which had a strange way of bringing an old friend who wasn't quite (_dot, dot, dot_) back into another's life so they could be, (_dot, dot, dot_) and make something break for one person, only to be repaired and used by someone else.

It made a _school girl tumble into a well only to meet the great love of her reincarnated soul._

Made a _demon slayer love a monk, only to meet hundreds of years later and fall in love a second time._

Rin didn't like thinking on her Lord, because it only meant her brush with his path again - - and she had no pressing desire for that. She'd always just slipped beneath his senses, but each time a closer call than the one before. Somewhere down the road Rin knew their destinies would have to converge, but always with the belief _that it wouldn't be right now_. How_ she wasn't quite ready yet. Just give her another hundred years or so, and then she could stand before him. Then she'd be smart enough _- - brave enough even.

Stepping out of the stall and wiping a film of steam from the mirror, Rin gazed at the perpetually twenty year old girl staring back at her. She remembered being run through by bandits at this age, starring in horror at the blade that still protruded from her chest three days later when she woke up. _Her true price paid_.

He'drelinquished control and ownership of her life, but what she really feared would happen if they met again-

was that he'd _command it back_.

And Rin wouldn't be able to say no.

After one thousand years, she understood a lot of things - - but nothing more precisely than the difference between _want to _and _have to._

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Somewhere far off, yet disconcertingly near, a long legged sixteen year old scrambles backwards out of a well. She curses and tugs at an indecently short skirt.

After a fight with the rusty gate, she quickly settles a bag over her shoulder and dashes down the sidewalk to school. She sends a mental _sit _to the jerk who did this to her in the first place. She hopes it hurts even if he can't hear it.

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One thousand years in the past an irrate looking half-breed Inuyokai sneezes and wonders if spring is coming early with its annoying amount of pollen and dander. He hates the spring - - yet he also hates the winter. In fact, he's pretty ticked at most of the seasons, but this was habit because his hate was an all consuming thing.

Well, except for _Kagome_. He doesn't hate her food and the nice smell she brings. But that was it, he hates everything else.

Hate, hate, hate.

_Hate_.

And why did his body feel so heavy all of a sudden?

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"Come home safe Ms. Tanaka."

Rin smiled quietly at Fudo, a servant in her household going on seventy-two years. He mirrored her expression with a gentle one of his own, pulling open the front door with an expediency that even she found surprising - - and few things could surprise an immortal. She placed a hand on his wrist, blinking slightly at the thin frailty she felt there. It made something hitch in her chest. Rin realized all the more how she would never cherish grays and wrinkles, weakening wit, or any of the small things an aging body does.

He would die before her - - she saw it in her mind's eye, eerily reminiscent of every burial she'd ever witnessed - - and it stung. A little duller now perhaps, as a thousand years had a tendency to numb things, but still, it existed all the same. She remembered seeing Fudo when he was just a boy, introduced to the manor by his mam, introduced to her and the secret she kept. Rin remembered his mother (another burial, another friend) who made the most scrumptious chocolate chip cookies she'd ever tasted. She'd watched this old man - - who kept her company, the other servants in line or simply listened to her prattle on about advanced theory, the Spartans and Aristotle - - she'd watched him grow like he was one of her _own_.

_God_, she thought, suddenly rubbing at a spot above her heart, _it hurt so much_. _Sometimes living hurt worse than dying. Dying, only to get up after a period of time to live again_.

Rin wondered, as she bid a soft goodbye and hurried out the door, if it would _ever stop hurting._

_He would die._

As Rin slid into the comfortable interior of her escort, Kiyoshi shutting the door politely behind, she couldn't help looking back at the mansion that had been her home for almost one hundred years. It was large and traditionally low to the ground, clay tiles perfectly arranged and glowing faintly in the sun. A scattered bundle of trees waved slightly on various parts of the estate, casting vague shadows across the car path.

She'd created something good here, with people who cared, but the thought of one more death made Rin wonder why _she should even care at all_. _In fact_, she mused sadly, _was that what happened to demons at the beginning of creation? Were they merely humans who'd been cursed with eternity and after a fraction of such time had come to understand _they _were the only things which mattered - -_

and no one else.

It chilled her to the bone.

She hoped her far too keenly developed senses were wrong, and that she was not meant to cross paths with her Lord _this century_. _God_, how she hoped. The darker spin of her thoughts lately, even the strange philosophy she'd continued expanding on seemed a prelude to some ultimate truth - - and again, Rin decided it was far too soon.

_Perhaps_, when she learned the secret of secrets among demons and their immortality, she'd be ready. _Maybe_, once she learned the secret to her own eternity. But not yet. Not yet.

"You have an appointment at the Higurashi shrine today, Ms. Tanaka."

Rin turned at the sound of Kiyoshi's voice, eyes widening a fraction. _Ah_, she sighed to herself, she was getting even more forgetful as time moved on. It did no good to dwell on memories and a past that refused to stay dead. She laughed a little. Her past seemed just like herself in that respect.

"That will be fine, Kiyoshi-kun. But promise me," Rin shifted into a teasing tone, smiling good naturedly into the rear view, "you'll go visit Ayame, as she has been sighing in a great forlorn fashion about how you never return her calls and how it's obvious you must be in love with some beautiful maid somewhere."

"Hn."

She giggled at his wordless response, before patting his shoulder in a motherly way across the seat. He frowned, while she only fleetingly mentioned a wonderful flower shop on this or that street right across from a _great ice cream parlor_.

Having lived in the company of one of the most inscrutable beings that ever walked the planet, Rin translated his resultant sigh and half-hearted shrug as '_okay, I'll do it, but only because I kinda-sorta-like her too.'_

"Of course you do." She smiled.

Rin also translated the slight stiffening and wary glance into the mirror, as an _'How the hell does she do that?'_

"Magic."

"...hm."

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And somewhere else, a powerful Demon lord stalks regally down a side street, dressed impeccably and thinking deep on the 'human problem.' A scrawny looking creature dressed in nondescript black and sunglasses, trails behind, muttering obscurely about how _he hates looking human _and how _those stupid demons should show more respect to his lord_, and if only _he had his staff of _-

Thwack!

"Silence, Jaken."

The pale human imitator rubs his head and nods mutely. He wishes not to annoy his lord anymore this day.

"Of course - " he winces at the careful flex of power and remembers not to call his lord by such antiquated terms. _Milord _had died out with battle armor and the dense woods which had once reached as far as the oceans. Sometimes, he sighs to himself, he really misses the feudal era.

"-sir."

They continue on.

_Innocence burns._

A/N - man, that took a lot of energy and I've only written eight pages! Blah, I'm a sorry story writer. Well, let me know what you think. Perhaps you can guess what might happen in the next chapter with the subtle (and not so subtle foreshadowing) I've included.

You know, I kinda understand the lure of writing Jaken now.

There really _isn't _anything funnier than a stupid toad getting knocked around. Damn demon servants.

Oh, and they'll probably be various flashbacks, so prepare yourself okay? Yeah, I hate them too. Please Review!


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